Brazilian team feeling the heat
Nation frets over ‘absolute zeros’
RIO DE JANEIRO Imagine the battering the Canadian psyche would have taken if its hockey team had opened the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver with 0-0 ties against Kazakhstan and Austria after getting whacked, say 11-1, by Russia two years earlier at a World Cup that had been played in Canada.
Brazil is suffering that nightmare this week after two scoreless draws against soccer minnows Iraq and South Africa. Those results followed a 7-1 drubbing at home against Germany in the 2012 World Cup in Rio that is still worn as a national disgrace and humiliation.
Brazil has high hopes in judo, volleyball and basketball at Latin America’s first Olympics. But it is soccer that is often described as the country’s true religion. It was that way even before Pele emerged from poverty more than half a century ago to give his unique gifts to the beautiful game.
To say that Brazilians have been livid about their Olympic team’s performance is to grossly understate the national mood.
“Absolute zeros. You are the shame of the Games,” Rio’s biggest newspaper, O Globo, screamed in a front-page headline. Another newspaper published a report card after the debacle against Iraq that gave every Brazilian player a failing grade.
The crowds that packed the bars along Rio’s Copacabana beach after the Iraq match were equally sour. After the final whistle, which closely followed many Brazilian near-misses for goals, they spilled onto the waterfront promenade screaming in anger and literally giving their team the thumbsdown after what television commentators had declared was the worst performance by a Brazilian Olympic team in 40 years.
Soccer “is more important than life,” Bernardo Nudel said, only slightly overstating the country’s passion for the game. “This team is our future and they are a disaster.”
“The whole country was watching and they have lost faith,” Carlos Ramos said, shaking his head.
“They are 11 wonderful players individually, but they do not understand how to be wonderful together.”
Brazil faces elimination in the northern city of Salvador on Wednesday if it does not beat Denmark, which should be the toughest opponent it plays in the first round of the Olympic tournament.
Much of the blame has fallen on Neymar. Only 24, the striker is a global superstar for FC Barcelona, which pays him close to US$28 million a year. It has been widely noted in the media and on the streets that Neymar makes about 20 times more than the entire Iraqi Olympic team. Yet Neymar and the young multimillionaires who play with him have not managed to produce a single goal.